1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election

none 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Flag of Russia.svgborder parliamentary no 1912 Russian legislative election 1912 1921 Russian legislative election 1921 All 767 seats in the Russian Constituent Assembly384 seats required for a majority 25 November 1917:1 In some districts, polling was held on alternative days. 45,879,381 (64%) Viktor Mikhaylovich Chernov.jpg 160 120 150 8 9 Viktor Chernov Socialist Revolutionary Party 76ba22 Tambov 324 17,256,911 37.6% Lenin in Switzerland.jpg 180 120 150 20 27 Vladimir Lenin Bolsheviks ce0000 Baltic Fleet 183 10,671,387 23.3% Hrushevskyi Mykhailo XX.jpg 130 120 150 2 6 Mykhailo Hrushevsky Ukrainian SRs f3cb18 Kiev 110 5,819,395 12.7% YuliMartov1917PorSteinberg.jpeg 240 120 150 35 90 Julius Martov Mensheviks ff9a18 Did not contest 18 1,385,500 3.0% Cossacks 19ccff Don Cossack Region Войсковой_Атаман_Области_Войска_Донского,_генерал_от_кавалерии_Каледин_Алексей_Максимович.PNG 250 120 150 17 66 Alexey Kaledin 17 908,326 2.0% Pavel Milyukov 2.jpg 170 120 150 5 18 Pavel Milyukov Constitutional Democratic Party Petrograd Metropolis 16 2,100,262 4.6% Alikhan Bukeikhanov in 1906.jpg 180 120 150 5 23 Alikhan Bukeikhanov Alash 008000 Did not contest 15 767,632 1.7% Mahammad Amin Rasulzade 3.jpg 190 120 150 20 36 Mahammad Amin Rasulzade Musavat Party 007DC3 Transcaucasus 15 615,816 1.3% ARF Collective leadership Armenian Revolutionary Federation 10 558,400 1.2% File:1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election results map.svg 450px Winning party by constituency File:1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election.svg 450px Composition of the elected legislature Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917.:1 Organized as a result of events in the February Revolution, the elections took place two months after they had been originally meant to occur. They are generally recognised as the first free elections in Russian history,Dando William A. June 1966 A Map of the Election to the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917 Slavic Review 25 2 314–319 10.2307/2492782 0037-6779 2492782 156132823 though they did not produce a democratically elected government, as the Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties banned.Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГUlam 1998 397; Sakwa 1999 73; Judson 1998 229; Marples 2010 38; Hough Fainsod 1979 80–81; Dowlah Elliott 1997 18Soviet Union at Encyclopedia Britannica Various academic studies have given alternative results. However, all indicate that the Bolsheviks were clear winners in the urban centres, and also took around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the Western Front. Nevertheless, the Socialist-Revolutionary party topped the polls, winning a plurality of seats (no party won a majority) on the strength of support from the country's rural peasantry, who were for the most part one-issue voters, that issue being land reform. Some modern Marxist theoreticians have contested the view that a one-party state was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions.Grant Alex Top 10 lies about the Bolshevik Revolution https://www.marxist.com/top-10-lies-about-the-bolshevik-revolution-part-one.htm In Defence of Marxism en-gb 1 November 2017 George Novack stressed the initial efforts by the Bolsheviks to form a government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality.Novack George Democracy and Revolution 1971 Pathfinder 978-0-87348-192-2 307–347 https://books.google.com/books?id=bLMgAQAAIAAJ en Tony Cliff argued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the Constituent Assembly due to a number of reasons. They cited outdated voter-rolls that did not acknowledge the split within the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the assembly's conflict with the elected Russian Congress of the Soviets as an alternative, democratic structure.Cliff Tony Revolution Besieged. The Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly) https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1978/lenin3/ch03.html www.marxists.org The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also initially approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists; both groups were in favour of a more extensive democracy.Liebman Marcel Leninism under Lenin 1975 London : J. Cape 978-0-224-01072-6 237 https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6/page/237/mode/1up Background The convocation of a Constituent Assembly had been a long-standing demand of the democratic and popular movements in Tsarist Russia. In the later phase of the February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 2, 1917. The Russian Provisional Government was formed and pledged to carry through with holding elections for a Constituent Assembly. Consensus emerged between all major political parties to go ahead with the election. Nevertheless, the various political parties were divided over many details on the organization of the impending election. The Bolsheviks demanded immediate elections, whilst the Socialist-Revolutionaries wanted to postpone the vote for several months for it not to collide with the harvest season. Right-wing forces also pushed for delay of the election.Tony Brenton Was Revolution Inevitable?: Turning Points of the Russian Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=-L_XDQAAQBAJ 2017 Oxford University Press 978-0-19-065891-5 152–155 On March 19, 1917 a mass rally was held in Petrograd, demanding female suffrage. The march gathered some 40,000 participants. The protest was led by Vera Figner and Poliksena Shishkina-Iavein. It moved from the Petrograd City Duma to the Tauride Palace, and the demonstrators refused to vacate the palace grounds before the Provisional Government and the Soviet committed to female suffrage. On July 20, 1917, the Provisional Government issued a decree awarding voting rights for women aged 20 years and above.Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild Equality and Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=ymzJHyguvigC 2010 University of Pittsburgh Press 978-0-8229-7375-1 xviii, 207 In May the political parties agreed on main principles of the election (proportional representation, universal suffrage and secret ballot). A special electoral commission was set up, composed of multiple lawyers and legal experts. The following month September 17, 1917 was set as the election date. The new Constituent Assembly was supposed to have its first meeting on September 30, 1917. In July the left-wing parties increased their pressure on the Provisional Government, reaching a nearly insurrectionist situation. In the end, the following month the left consented to a further postponement. On August 9, 1917 a new date for the election was set by the Provisional Government: voting on November 12 and the first session of the Constituent Assembly would be held on November 28, 1917.Korolikov, O. P.. Выборы в Учредительное собрание в Псковской губернии (1917 г.) https://web.archive.org/web/20190711140214/http://www.pskov.izbirkom.ru/etc/vybory_v_uchreditelnoe_sobranie_v_pskovskoy_gubernii_1917_g.pdf 2019-07-11 Between the finalization of candidate lists and the election, the October Revolution broke out.V. I. Lenin Vladimir Lenin Democracy and Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=es6FDrcQymUC&pg=PA114 2001 Resistance Books 978-1-876646-00-4 114 The October Revolution ended the reign of the Provisional Government. A new Soviet government took charge of the country, the Council of People's Commissars. Nevertheless, the new government pledged to go ahead with the election and that its rule remained provisional until its authority would be confirmed by the Constituent Assembly. Electoral system 200px|link=|alt=Electoral Districts of the1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election200pxNorthern/Northwestern Arkhangelsk Olonets Vologda Petrograd Metropolis Petrograd Pskov Novgorod200pxBaltic/White Russian Estonia Livonia Vitebsk Minsk Mogilev Smolensk200pxCentral Industrial Region Moscow Metropolis Moscow Tver Yaroslavl Kostroma Vladimir Kaluga Tula200pxCentral Black Earth Region Ryazan Oryol Kursk Voronezh Tambov Penza200pxVolga Nizhni Novgorod Simbirsk Kazan Samara Saratov Astrakhan200pxKama-Ural Vyatka Perm Ufa Orenburg200pxUkraine Kiev Volynia Podolia Chernigov Poltava Kharkov Yekaterinoslav Kherson200pxSouth-Black Sea/Southeastern Bessarabia Taurida Don Cossack Region Stavropol200pxCaucasus Kuban-Black Sea Terek-Dagestan Pricaspian Transcaucasus200pxTurkestan Horde Uralsk Turgai Transcaspian Samarkand Amu Darya Syr Darya Fergana Semirechie200pxSiberia Tobolsk Steppes Tomsk Altai Yenisei Irkutsk Transbaikal Priamur Chinese Eastern Railroad Yakutsk KamchatkaMilitary Districts Baltic Fleet Black Sea Fleet Northern Front Western Front South-Western Front Romanian Front Caucasian Front Russian forces in France and the Balkans 81 electoral districts (ru-latn okrugs) were formed by the Provisional Government.Wade 2004 256–257Evan Mawdsley Evan Mawdsley Thomas Munck Computing for Historians: An Introductory Guide https://books.google.com/books?id=G-noAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA117 1993 Manchester University Press 978-0-7190-3548-7 117, 119 Electoral districts were generally set up on (pre-revolutionary) governorate or ethnic oblast boundaries.Konstantin Nikolaevich Maksimov Kalmykia in Russia's Past and Present National Policies and Administrative System https://books.google.com/books?id=SyogLC4SdRsC&pg=PA190 1 January 2008 Central European University Press 978-963-9776-17-3 190–191 Moreover, there were electoral districts for the different army groups and fleets. There were also an electoral district assigned for the workers at the Chinese Eastern Railroad and one electoral district for the soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Corps in France and the Balkans (with some 20,000 voters).Wade 2004 256–257Лев Григорьевич Протасов Всероссийское учредительное собрание: история рождения и гибели https://books.google.com/books?id=tmcaAQAAMAAJ 1997 РОССПЭН 162 9785860041172 No official electoral census exists. The estimated population of eligible voters at the time (excluding occupied territories) has been estimated at around 85 million; the number of eligible voters in the districts where polling took place has been estimated at around 80 million.Wade 2004 256–257 Each party had a separate ballot with a list with names of candidates, there was no general ballot. The voter would either have received copies of different party lists in advance or at the polling station. The voter would select one list, place it in an envelope, seal it and place it in the box. If any name was scratched, the vote would be invalid.Oliver Henry Radkey Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917 https://archive.org/details/russiagoestopoll00radk registration 1989 Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-2360-4 43 Voting The voting began on November 12–14, 1917. The election was at the time the largest election organized in history.Simon Rabinovitch Jewish Rights, National Rites: Nationalism and Autonomy in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia https://books.google.com/books?id=1B5-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA233 1 October 2016 Stanford University Press 978-0-8047-9303-2 233–235 However, only in 39 districts did the election take place as scheduled. In many districts the voting occurred in late November or early December, and in some remote places the vote took place only in early January 1918. In spite of war and turmoil, some 47 million voters exercised their franchise, with a national voter turnout of around 64% (per Protasov (2004)).Wade 2004 259Wade 2004 256–257 According to Protasov (2004), the countryside generally had a higher voter turnout than the cities. 220 cities across the country, with a combined population of seven million, had a voter turnout of 58%. In agrarian provinces turnout generally ranged from 62 to 80%. In Tambov province urban areas had a turnout of 50.2% while rural areas had 74.5%.Wade 2004 260 According to Radkey (1989) national voter turnout stood at around 55%.Oliver Henry Radkey Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917 https://archive.org/details/russiagoestopoll00radk registration 1989 Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-2360-4 99 Competing parties Socialist-Revolutionaries The Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) emerged as the most voted party in the election, swaying the broad majority of the peasant vote. The agrarian programmes of the SR and Bolshevik parties were largely similar, but the peasantry were more familiar with the SRs. The Bolsheviks lacked an organizational presence in many rural areas. In areas where the Bolshevik electoral campaign had been active (for example, near to towns or garrisons) the peasant vote was somewhat evenly divided between SRs and Bolsheviks.Sheila Fitzpatrick The Russian Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=MkYVDAAAQBAJ 28 February 2008 Oxford University Press Oxford 978-0-19-923767-8 66–67 Moreover, whilst the SRs enjoyed widespread support among the peasantry, the party lacked a strong organizational structure in rural areas. The party was highly dependent on peasant union, zemstvos, cooperatives and soviets.Scott Baldwin Smith Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC 2011 University of Pittsburgh Press 978-0-8229-7779-7 10, 98 On the issue of war and peace, the SR leadership had vowed not to enter into a separate peace with the Central Powers. The SR leadership condemned the peace talks initiated by the Bolsheviks, but to what extent the SRs were prepared to continue the war was unclear at the time. Along with the Mensheviks, the SRs supported the notion of engaging with other European socialist politicians to find a settlement to the ongoing World War. The filing of nominations for the election took place just as the split in the SR party was taking place. By late October, when the SR party lists were already set, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries formed a separate party (PLSR).Geoffrey Swain Trotsky and the Russian Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=_a3pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR14 24 February 2014 Routledge 978-1-317-81278-4 xiv But whilst by the time of the election the Left SRs had constituted a separate party, the split was not completed in local SR party branches until early 1918. The Kazan, Yaroslavl, Kazan and Kronstadt SR organizations went over to the Left SRs en bloc. In Ufa and Pskov the majority in the SR party organization crossed over to the Left SRs. In Petrograd the leftist faction had dominated the SR party branch prior to the October Revolution, but elsewhere the majority in the party organizations remained with the SR party. Notably in some of the locations leftist and rightist SR lists were separately presented (Baltic Fleet, Petrograd, Kazan), the leftists prevailed over the rightists, leading D'Agostino (2011) to argue that had separate right/left SRs lists been presented nationwide the peasantry could have opted for the left (considering that there were no major difference between the factions on their agrarian programmes). A key Bolshevik argument against the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly once it was elected was that the lists had been finalized before the Left SRs constituted themselves as a separate party, and that if the Left SRs had stood separately the Bolshevik and Left SR would have won the majority vote.Stephen Anthony Smith Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SuDQAAQBAJ 2017 Oxford University Press 978-0-19-873482-6 155 This was despite the Left SR's eventual opposition to the closure of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks.Llewellyn Jennifer The Left SRs https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/left-srs/#Split_from_the_SRs THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 3 May 2013 Alpha History 23 August 2020 Per Serge's account, 40 of 339 elected SR deputies were leftists and 50 belong to Chernov's centrist faction. Smith points out that though the association with Soviet power strengthened the Left PLSR popularity in the countryside, the schism did not transform the PLSR overnight into a large and well-organized political party, and during the following months of 1918 the SR party managed to regain control over some of the soviets and local branches it lost to the left.Scott Baldwin Smith Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC 2011 University of Pittsburgh Press 978-0-8229-7779-7 10–11, 14–35 Bolsheviks In 1917 the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) had begun to allow mass membership, without consulting with Lenin.Alexander Rabinowitch Alexander Rabinowitch The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd https://books.google.com/books?id=BEoBCGJ4VqYC 2008 Indiana University Press 978-0-253-22042-4 3, 89 On July 1, 1917 the Central Committee sent out an instruction to local party organizations to build a broad democratic unity ahead of the elections, to reach out to Menshevik-Internationalists, left-wing SRs and trade unions. In the wake of the abortive July uprising (organized by the revolutionary Petrograd Bolshevik Committee and the Military Organization), the moderates of the Central Committee again appealed to build a left socialist bloc and invited the Menshevik-Internationalists to attend the upcoming party congress as observers. With the election finally approaching, Lenin took a tough stance towards the Central Committee. He deplored the absence of proletarians from the list of proposed candidates that the Central Committee had adopted, charging the Committee with opening the doors for opportunists. In Lenin's view, only workers would be able to create alliances with the peasantry. Lenin also criticised the list for including many recent arrivals to the party who had not yet been tested in "proletarian work in our Party's spirit." While Lenin believed that some new members of the Bolsheviks, in particular Leon Trotsky (who had fought for the merger of his Mezhraiontsy faction into the Bolshevik Party since his return to Russia and had "proved himself equal to the task and a loyal supporter of the party of the revolutionary proletariat"), were acceptable candidates, placing large numbers of untested new members on the Bolshevik ballot opened the party's doors to careerism.August H. Nimtz Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both https://books.google.com/books?id=6g86AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 13 March 2014 Springer 978-1-137-38995-4 133, 138 The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) campaigned for bread, peace and a government of Soviets. But the party leadership was divided on the issue of the Constituent Assembly. The moderates in the Central Committee held the opinion that the Constituent Assembly should become the supreme body to decide the future path of Russia. Lenin opposed this line. In an article edited after the elections, he stated that "the proletariat cannot achieve victory if it does not win the majority of the population to its side. But to limit that winning to polling a majority of votes in an election under the rule of the bourgeoisie, or to make it the condition for it, is crass stupidity, or else sheer deception of the workers. In order to win the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must, in the first place, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and completely smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters". The party emerged victorious in the two main cities; Petrograd and Moscow, and emerged the major party in urban Russia overall. It won an absolute majority of votes in the Baltic Fleet, the Northern Front and the Western Front. The call for immediate peace made the Bolsheviks popular in the military, winning around 42% of the votes from the armed forces. Often the election result is portrayed as an indicator for impopularity of the Bolsheviks, but as per Victor Serge the strong showing of the Bolshevik vote in the main cities 18 days after the October Revolution broke out shows that there was a popular mandate from the industrial workers for the revolution. Mensheviks By the time of the election, the Mensheviks had lost most of their influence in the workers' soviets.Victor Serge Victor Serge Year One of the Russian Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=IlavDQAAQBAJ 15 January 2017 Haymarket Books 978-1-60846-609-2 6–7 The election result confirmed the marginalization of the Mensheviks, who obtained a little over a million votes.Anthony D'Agostino The Russian Revolution, 1917-1945 https://books.google.com/books?id=uD1-0Gxw0NMC&pg=PA50 2011 ABC-CLIO 978-0-313-38622-0 50–51 In a fifth of the constituencies, pro-war Mensheviks and Internationalists ran on competing slates and in Petrograd and Kharkov the defencists had set up their own local organizations.Vladimir N. Brovkin The Mensheviks After October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship https://books.google.com/books?id=cP0xLtu1aZgC&pg=PA39 1991 Cornell University Press 0-8014-9976-3 39 Nearly half of the Menshevik vote came from Georgia. Kadets The Kadet party had changed its name to 'People's Freedom Party' by 1917, but the new name was rarely used.Rex A. Wade Rex A. Wade The Russian Revolution, 1917 https://books.google.com/books?id=r4LTDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA12%27 2 February 2017 Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-13032-6 12 Kadets campaigned for national unity, law and order, honour commitments to the allies of Russia and 'honorable peace'.Mary McAuley Bread and Justice: State and Society in Petrograd, 1917-1922 https://books.google.com/books?id=c85oAAAAMAAJ 1991 Clarendon Press 978-0-19-821982-8 76 The Kadets condemned Bolsheviks in election campaign. The Kadets had sought to build a broad democratic coalition, setting up a liaison committee for alliances (Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev and M. S. Adzhemov) but this effort failed as the Popular Socialists and cooperative movement rejected electoral pacts with the Kadets.Geoffrey Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War https://books.google.com/books?id=CawuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 26 November 2013 Routledge 978-1-317-89912-9 46, 85 Whilst the Kadets emerged as the main losers in the election, they did take a sizable share of the votes in the largest cities. However the Kadets were hurt by abstention amongst urban intelligentsia voters.Simon Rabinovitch Jewish Rights, National Rites: Nationalism and Autonomy in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia https://books.google.com/books?id=1B5-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA237 1 October 2016 Stanford University Press 978-0-8047-9303-2 237 They had also lost a large share of their habitual Jewish intelligentsia vote to Jewish national coalition lists. Popular Socialists The congress of the Popular Socialists, held on September 26, 1917, rejected the notion of an electoral alliance with the Kadets. The party congress ordered that joint lists would only be organized with fellow socialist groups. The Popular Socialists condemned the Bolsheviks in their campaigning, whilst stressing the defencist line of their own party.Michael C. Hickey Competing Voices from the Russian Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=yf3HSokrkPoC&pg=PA403 2011 ABC-CLIO 978-0-313-38523-0 399 Cooperative movement The cooperative societies held an emergency congress on October 4, 1917, at which it was decided that they would contest the Constituent Assembly elections directly.Robert Paul Browder Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: Documents https://archive.org/details/russianprovision03brow registration 1961 Stanford University Press 1730 The congress discarded the notion of electoral pacts with non-socialist groups. In the Petrograd election district, the list of cooperative candidates included only one notable figure, Alexander Chayanov. The other six candidates were largely unknown.Ilya Gerasimov Modernism and Public Reform in Late Imperial Russia: Rural Professionals and Self-Organization, 1905-30 https://books.google.com/books?id=Hr4nAQAAIAAJ 29 September 2009 Palgrave Macmillan 978-0-230-22947-1 301 National minorities Most non-Russian voters opted for national minority parties. In the case of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party dominated the 4 electoral districts of the Ukrainian peasantry. Non-Ukrainian urban populations largely voted for Russian parties. In the city of Kiev, the Ukrainian parties obtained 26% of the vote.George O. Liber Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 https://books.google.com/books?id=yNgQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA64 2016 University of Toronto Press 978-1-4426-2708-6 64 Over half a million soldiers and officers in the army and navy voted for Ukrainian parties supporting the Central Rada, making the Ukrainians the third force among military voters.The Ukrainian Quarterly https://books.google.com/books?id=OoHiAAAAMAAJ 1957 Ukrainian Congress Committee of America 327 However, in Belarus, Belarusian nationalist groups gathered less than 1% of the votes. In Transcaucasus the vote was divided between Georgians (voting for the Mensheviks), Armenians (voting for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, also known as ru-latn Dashnaksiun) and Azerbaijanis (voting for Musavat and other Muslim groups). Tatar and Bashkir lists gathered 55% of the votes in Ufa.Andreas Kappeler The Russian Empire: A Multi-ethnic History https://books.google.com/books?id=JZ9eBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA363 27 August 2014 Routledge 978-1-317-56810-0 363 In July 1917 the First All-Kazakh Congress was held, establishing the Alash Party as a national political party. The party called for the 'liberation of the Kazakh people from colonial yoke'. Ahead of the election, party committees were formed in Semipalatinsk, Omsk, Akmolinsk and Uralsk.S. Sabol Russian Colonization and the Genesis of Kazak National Consciousness https://books.google.com/books?id=RvCFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA141 13 March 2003 Palgrave Macmillan UK 978-0-230-59942-0 141Dudolgnon Stephane A. Hisao Komatsu Islam In Politics In Russia https://books.google.com/books?id=gXn_AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA94 5 November 2013 Routledge 978-1-136-88878-6 94 In the Semirechie, Syr-Darya and Horde electoral districts Alash did not field lists of their own, but placed candidates of other Muslim lists.Н. Н. Алеврас ru:Россия и Восток: Россия между Европой и Азией. Национальный вопрос и политические движения Rossiya i Vostok: Rossiya mezhdu Yevropoy i Aziyey. Natsional'nyy vopros i politicheskiye dvizheniya ru Russia and the East: Russia between Europe and Asia. National question and political movements https://books.google.com/books?id=6mEuAQAAIAAJ 1995 Челябинский гос. унив. 157 Four days ahead of the vote the newspaper Qazaq published the Alash programme, including a call for a democratic federal republic with equality of nationalities.Pete Rottier Creating the Kazak nation: the intelligensia's quest for acceptance in the Russian empire, 1905-1920 https://books.google.com/books?id=GsAIAQAAMAAJ 2005 University of Wisconsin-Madison 337 In 14 electoral districts, 2 or more Jewish lists were in the fray. In Zhitomir, 5 out of 13 parties contesting were Jewish. In Gomel 4 out of 11 parties were Jewish, in Poltava 5 out of 14. Some 80% of the votes cast for Jewish parties went to Jewish national coalition lists. The Folkspartey was the most enthusiastic proponent of Jewish national coalition lists. These coalitions, generally contesting under titles such as 'Jewish National Bloc' or 'Jewish National Election Committee' also gathered Zionists and Orthodox Jews. The candidates on these lists had vowed to form a common bloc in the Constituent Assembly and implement decisions of the All-Russian Jewish Congress.Abraham Malamat A History of the Jewish People https://archive.org/details/historyofjewishp00harv registration 1976 Harvard University Press 978-0-674-39731-6 965 The Jewish national lists were confronted by the various Jewish socialist parties; the General Jewish Labour Bund, the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion) and the United Jewish Socialist Workers Party (ru-latn Fareynikte). The Bund carried out 200 electoral meetings in White Russia (with a total attendance of about 127,000), and in Ukraine the party held 2–3 electoral meetings weekly. In Odessa confrontations between socialist and non-socialist Jewish parties led to physical violence.Zvi Y. Gitelman Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930 https://books.google.com/books?id=ufZ9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80 8 March 2015 Princeton University Press 978-1-4008-6913-8 80–81 Jewish national lists elected Iu. D. Brutskus, A.M. Goldstein, the Moscow rabbi Yaakov Mazeh. V. I. Temkin, D. M. Kogan-Bernsthein, N. S. Syrkin and O. O. Gruzenberg (who was then close to Zionist circles). David Lvovich was elected on SR-Fareynikte list and the Bundist G.I. Lure was elected on a Menshevik-Bund list.Oleg Budnitskii Oleg Budnitskii Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920 https://books.google.com/books?id=dLdhSUZI-AYC&pg=PA53 24 July 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press 978-0-8122-0814-6 53 The Buryat National Committee had previously been linked to the SRs, but ahead of the election relation was broken. Buryat SRs were not given prominent places on candidate lists, and the Buryat National Committee ended up contesting on its own.Ivan Sablin Governing Post-Imperial Siberia and Mongolia, 1911–1924: Buddhism, Socialism and Nationalism in State and Autonomy Building https://books.google.com/books?id=gmCFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA82 5 February 2016 Routledge 978-1-317-35894-7 82 Others Radical Democrats (rightists) got some 19,000 votes.Wade 2004 259 Results Results of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election thumb|Illustration in Petrogradskaya Gazeta, depicting the election campaign and voting National results No fully complete account of the results of the 1917 election exists, as in several districts the holding of the election or the tallying of votes was interrupted. The numbers in the table below represent accounts from the voting in 70 out of 81 electoral districts, although not all of those districts have complete voting tallies. The tally of elected deputies stems from 74 districts. PartyVotes%ListscountedSeatsParty of Socialist-RevolutionariesIncludes lists such as the joint SR-Menshevik list in Olonets (although only the SR deputy is included in the seat tally), the general soviet list in Semirechie, the joint SR-Peasants Union list in Irkutsk, the joint SR-Ukrainian SR list in Poltava. The count does not include other joint SR-Ukrainian SR lists in Ukraine, except Poltava (where the SR-USR list confronted the main USR-sponsored list), nor does it include any of the dissident leftist or rightist SR lists. 17,256,911 37.61 67 324BolsheviksIncludes all joint Bolshevik/Menshevik-Internationalist lists. Includes the joint Bolshevik-Menshevik list in Vologda, but not the joint Menshevik-Bolshevik list in Tobolsk (as the latter was reportedly dominated by Mensheviks). 10,671,387 23.26 64 183Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party and alliesIncludes all Ukrainian SR-led lists in Ukraine as well as the Ukrainian SR-led lists in the army districts 5,819,395 12.68 16 110Kadets 2,100,262 4.58 63 16MensheviksIncludes joint Menshevik-Bund lists, and the joint Menshevik-Bolshevik list in Tobolsk. This line does not include the votes from the joint SR-Menshevik list in Olonets, which elected one Menshevik deputy. However, the Menshevik from Olonets is included in the seat count. 1,385,500 3.02 61 18Cossacks 908,326 1.98 9 17Alash Orda 767,632 1.67 4 15Musavat Party 615,816 1.34 1 10Jewish national lists 575,007 1.25 18 6Armenian Revolutionary Federation 558,400 1.22 1 10Other Muslim listsIncludes the Astrakhan Muslim Group, the Kazan Governorate Muslim Assembly, the Orenburg Muslim Association, the Perm Muslims-Bashkirs, Perm Muslims, Taurida Muslims, Tobolsk Muslims, Western Transcaucasus Muslims, the Muslim National Council in Ufa, the Muslim-Democrats in Steppes, the Tatar list in Steppes, and the Muslim Union of Vyatka Governorate. 439,611 0.96 9Muslims (Socialist-Revolutionaries) 304,864 0.66 1 5Popular SocialistsIncludes the joint list with the Cheremi National Union in Vyatka, which elected the sole Popular Socialist deputy nationwide. The various alliances with cooperative movements and other socialist groups are listed separately. 240,791 0.52 39 1Chuvash 235,587 0.51 3 3All-Russian Union of Landowners and Farmers 229,264 0.50 20 0Polish lists 211,272 0.46 7 2Orthodox lists 210,973 0.46 18 0Bashkir Federalists 200,161 0.44 3 5Germans 194,623 0.42 9 1Muslim Shuro-Islamia 183,558 0.40 2 5Peasants lists 165,097 0.36 13 10Muslim Socialist Bloc 159,770 0.35 1 3Muslim Socialist Committee of Kazan 153,151 0.33 1 2Russian rightistsIncludes the different rightist and monarchist lists. 146,067 0.32 13 1Old Believers 118,362 0.26 11 0Other Muslim socialist listsIncludes the All Muslim Socialist Bloc of Nizhny Novgorod, the Muslim Socialists in the Romanian Front, the Socialist Group of Muslim Soldiers of the South-Western Front, the Kirghiz Socialists in the Steppe district, the Party of the Muslim Socialist-Democratic Bloc in Tambov and the Muslim Socialist on the Western Front. 100,890 0.22 6 0SR DefencistsIncludes dissident right-wing SR lists that contested against the official SR party lists 99,542 0.22 5 0Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour PartyIn many constituencies the party contested on the Ukrainian SR-led lists. This count is only for the 2 districts where the Ukrainian Social Democrats contested alone. 85,772 0.19 2 0Hummet 84,748 0.18 1 1Right-wing socialist blocsVarious local alliances of Popular Socialists, cooperatives, right-wing Mensheviks, right-wing SRs, Plekhanov's Unity group, etc. 82,673 0.18 8 0All Fergana List of Soviet of Deputies of Muslim Organizations 77,282 0.17 1 9Muinil Islam Society 76,849 0.17 1 2Estonian Democratic Bloc 68,085 0.15 1 2Ittihad Party 66,504 0.14 1 1Estonian Labour Party 64,704 0.14 1 2Buryat National Committee 56,331 0.12 2 2Union of Ukrainian Peasants, Ukrainian Refugees and the Organization of Tatar Socialist Revolutionaries 53,445 0.12 1 0Peasants Union-Popular Socialists alliance 50,780 0.11 1 1German socialists 42,148 0.09 1 0Lettish Peasant Union 35,112 0.08 2 1United Jewish Socialist Labour Party (S.S. and E.S.) 34,644 0.08 7 0BundIn most constituencies where the Bund was active, it contested on joint lists with the Mensheviks. This line only counts the 3 constituencies were the Bund ran its own lists. 32,986 0.07 3 0National Bloc (Ukrainians, Muslims, Poles and Lithuanians)29,8210.0610Uighur-Dungan alliance 28,386 0.06 1 0Commercial-Industrial lists 27,198 0.06 8 0Popular Socialist-Cooperative lists 27,014 0.06 5 0Socialist-Federalists and Peasants of Latgale 26,990 0.06 1 0Poalei Zion 26,331 0.06 10 0Unity 24,272 0.05 10 0Menshevik Defencists 23,451 0.05 2 0Georgian National Democrats 22,499 0.05 1 0Ukrainian Socialist-FederalistsOn 2 out of 3 lists, contested jointly with the Popular Socialists 22,253 0.05 3 0Menshevik-InternationalistsDoes not include any results for joint lists with the Bolsheviks 21,814 0.05 6 0Cooperative movement 19,663 0.04 7 0Georgian Socialist-Federalists 19,042 0.04 1 0Estonian Socialist Revolutionary Party 17,726 0.04 1 0Estonian Radical Democratic Party 17,022 0.04 1 0Estonian List 15,963 0.03 1 0All Russian Peasants Union 15,246 0.03 2 0Finnish Socialists 14,807 0.03 1 0International Unity of Christian Democrats (Roman Catholics) 14,382 0.03 1 0Dissident leftist SR listsIncludes the leftist dissident lists, that contested against the official SR party lists. In locations where the left faction of the SRs dominated the official party list, the result is included in the main SR count. 14,148 0.03 4 0Armenian Populist Party 13,099 0.03 1 0Non-Partisan Public Figures 12,050 0.03 1 0Leftist SRs-Ukrainian SRs-Polish Socialist Party alliance 11,871 0.03 1 0Estonian Social Democratic Association 9,244 0.02 1 0Siberian Autonomists 9,224 0.02 2 0Greeks in Mariupol 9,143 0.02 1 0Belarusian Socialist Assembly 8,445 0.02 3 0FolksparteiIn many locations the Folkspartei joined Jewish national lists. 8,185 0.02 2 0Other UkrainiansIncludes 4 Ukrainian lists, outside of Ukraine, with unclear party identity. 7,838 0.02 4 0All Russian League for Women's Equality 7,676 0.02 2 0Landowner-Old Believer lists 7,139 0.02 2 0Moldovan National Party 6,643 0.01 1 0Petrograd organizations of the Ukrainian Soc.-Dem. Labour Party, the Ukrainian SRs and the United Jewish Socialist Labour Party (S.S. and E.S.) 6,216 0.01 2 0Lettish Democrats-Nationalists 5,881 0.01 1 0Latgallian Popular Committee and Latgallian Socialist Party of Working People 5,118 0.01 1 0Independent Union of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants 4,942 0.01 1 0Tsentroflot 4,769 0.01 1 0Local citizens' groups 4,725 0.01 3 0Democratic Non-partisan Group of Members of District Committees of Sergiev Posad 4,497 0.01 1 0Bloc of Traders, Industrialists, Artisans and Homeowners 4,421 0.01 1 0Ukrainian Toilers List 3,810 0.01 1 0Christian Democratic Party 3,797 0.01 1 0E. Abramov 3,776 0.01 1 0Lettish Soldiers 3,386 0.01 1 0White Russian Organizations 2,523 0.01 1 0National-Socialist Bloc (Ukrainian Socialist Bloc and Nationalist Bloc) 2,346 0.01 1 0Pskov United Democratic Groups of Townspeople, Peasants and Workers 2,337 0.01 1 0Officers' Union 2,018 0.00 1 0Agricultural-Artisan-Commercial-Industrial group 2,001 0.00 1 0Non-Partisan Group 1,948 0.00 1 0Nationalist Bloc 1,708 0.00 1 0List without title 1,657 0.00 1 0Yakutian Labour Union of Federalists 1,541 0.001 1Homeowners and Landowners of Novgorod Governorate 1,178 0.00 1 0Ukrainian National Republican Group 1,070 0.00 1 0Toiling Peasants 1,020 0.00 1 0Employees of Government Agencies 1,005 0.00 1 0Other lists with less than 1000 votes 5,833 0.01 13 0Muslim Organizations of Samarkand Oblast ? 1 4Kalmyk ? 1 1Unaccounted 294,530 0.64Total 45,879,381 100.00 629 767Sources: Radkey (1989),Oliver Henry Radkey Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917 https://archive.org/details/russiagoestopoll00radk registration 1989 Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-2360-4 148–160 Spirin (1987),Л. М. Спирин ru:Россия 1917 год: из истории борьбы политических партий Rossiya 1917 god: iz istorii bor'by politicheskikh partiy ru Russia 1917: from the history of the struggle of political parties https://books.google.com/books?id=SdseAAAAMAAJ 1987 Мысль 273–328 Hovannisian (1967),Richard G. Hovannisian Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918 https://archive.org/details/armeniaonroadtoi00hova registration 1967 University of California Press 978-0-520-00574-7 108, 288 Vestnik Evrazii (2004)ru:Вестник Евразии Vestnik Yevrazii ru Bulletin of Eurasia https://books.google.com/books?id=EKwjAQAAIAAJ 2004 изд-во дi-дик 120 Protasov (1997)Лев Григорьевич Протасов https://books.google.com/books?id=tmcaAQAAMAAJ Всероссийское учредительное собрание: история рождения и гибели РОССПЭН 1997 366 Svyatitsky and Lenin There are various different accounts of the election result, with varying numbers.Simon Rabinovitch Jewish Rights, National Rites: Nationalism and Autonomy in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia https://books.google.com/books?id=1B5-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA347 1 October 2016 Stanford University Press 978-0-8047-9303-2 347 Many accounts on the election result originate from N. V. Svyatitsky's account, who was himself elected as an SR deputy to the Constituent Assembly. His article was included in the one-year anniversary symposium of the Russian Revolution organized by the SR party (Moscow, Zemlya i Volya Publishers, 1918). Lenin (1919) describes Svyatitsky's account as extremely interesting. It presented results from 54 electoral districts, covering most of European Russia and Siberia. Notably is lacked details from the Olonets, Estonian, Kaluga, Bessarabian, Podolsk, Orenburg, Yakutsk, Don governorates, as well as Transcaucasus. All in all, Svyatitsky's account includes 36,257,960 votes. According to Lenin, the actual number from said 54 electoral districts was 36,262,560 votes. But Lenin reaffirms that between Svyatitisky's article and his account, the number of votes cast by party is largely identical.Lenin V. I. Vladimir Lenin https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/dec/16.htm The Constituent Assembly Elections and The Dictatorship of the Proletariat 1919 Marxists Internet Archive + Lenin's account of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly result(54 districts) Bloc Votes %Party Votes %Party of the Proletariat9,023,96325Bolsheviks9,023,96325Petty-bourgeoisie democratic parties22,616,06462Socialist-Revolutionaries20,900,00058Mensheviks668,0642Popular Socialists312,0001Unity25,000Cooperative51,000Ukrainian Soc.-Dem.95,000Ukrainian Socialists507,0001German socialists44,000Finnish Socialists14,000Parties of landowners and bourgeoisie4,539,63913Kadets1,856,6395Association of Rural Proprietors and Landowners215,0001Right groups292,0001Old Believers73,000Jews550,0002Muslims576,0002Bashkirs195,000Letts67,000Polish155,000German130,000White Russians12,000Lists of various groups and organizations 418,0001 Radkey and Spirin More recent studies often use Svyatitsky's 1918 account as their starting point for further elaboration. L. M. Spirin (1987) uses local newspapers and Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian archival holdings to supplement Svyatitsky, whereas U.S. historian Oliver Henry Radkey predominately uses local newspapers as sources. According to Rabinovitch (2016), Spirin's account is the most complete. According to Arato (2017), U.S. scholar Radkey is the most serious historian on the 1917 election.Andrew Arato The Adventures of the Constituent Power https://books.google.com/books?id=XhA6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA421 30 November 2017 Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-12679-4 421 Radkey uses a number of uses broad categories in presenting the result party-wise: SRs (sometimes distinguished between left/right), Bolsheviks, Mensheviks (sometimes divided between Menshevik-Internationalists and Right-wing pro-war Mensheviks), Other Socialists (with subcategories) Kadets, Special interests (including subcategories peasants, landowners, Cossacks, middle-class, others), Religious (Orthodox, Old Believers, others), Ukrainian (with subcategories), Turkic-Tatar (with subcategories), Other Nationalities (with subcategories).Oliver Henry Radkey Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917 https://archive.org/details/russiagoestopoll00radk registration 1989 Cornell University Press 978-0-8014-2360-4 148–157 Deputies elected Protasov (2004) presents the party affiliation of 765 deputies elected from 73 electoral districts: 345 SRs, 47 Ukrainian SRs, 175 Bolsheviks, 17 Mensheviks, 7 Ukrainian Social Democrats, 14 Kadets, 2 Popular Socialists, another 32 Ukrainian socialists (possibly SRs or social democrats), 13 Muslim Socialists, 10 Dashnaks, 68 from other national parties, 16 Cossacks, 10 Christians and one clergyman. Another 55 deputies were supposed to have been elected from another 8 electoral districts.Wade 2004 259 Of the over 700 deputies known by name, over 400 participated at first session and only session of the Constituent Assembly (240 of the assembled belonged to the SR bloc).Uwe Backes Steffen Kailitz Ideocracies in Comparison: Legitimation – Cooptation – Repression https://books.google.com/books?id=H8fMCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA110 23 October 2015 Routledge 978-1-317-53545-4 110 Several prominent politicians had stood as candidates in multiple electoral districts. The Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) had named Lenin as their candidate in 5 districts: Petrograd City, Petrograd Province, Ufa, Baltic Fleet and Northern Front. Lenin was also nominated from Moscow City.Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin Collected Works: October 1917-Nov.1920 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/30.htm 1970 Lawrence & Wishart 467 On November 27 (December 10) the All-Russia Committee for Elections to the Constituent Assembly requested members of the Constituent Assembly who had been returned by several areas to present a written statement indicating the electoral district for which they accepted election. Having been elected by several areas, Lenin, too, presented such a statement. Lenin opted to represent the Baltic Fleet in the Constituent Assembly. In case an elected candidate didn't send in such a statement, the All-Russian Election Commission for the Constituent Assembly would consider the person elected from the district where he obtained the highest number of votes.Robert Paul Browder Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: Documents https://books.google.com/books?id=ED0nGEaD5ZsC 1961 Stanford University Press 462 Ballots Electoral campaign materials Dissolution of Constituent Assembly by Bolsheviks thumb|400px|Tauride Palace where the assembly convened. The All Russian Constituent Assembly (Всероссийское Учредительное собрание, Vserossiyskoye Uchreditelnoye sobraniye) convened only for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., 18–19 January 1918 5–6 January, whereupon it was dissolved by the Bolshevik-controlled All-Russian Central Executive Committee,Ulam 1998 397; Sakwa 1999 73; Judson 1998 229; Hough Fainsod 1979 80 making the Bolshevik Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets the new governing body of Russia.Marples 2010 38Hough Fainsod 1979 81Dowlah Elliott 1997 18 See also Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War Outline of the Russian Revolution and Civil War Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War Notes References 2 Bibliography Dowlah Alex F. Elliott John E. The Life and Times of Soviet Socialism 1997 Praeger Hough Jerry F. Jerry F. Hough Fainsod Merle How the Soviet Union is Governed Harvard University Press 9780674410305 1979 Judson William William Voorhees Judson Russia in War and Revolution: General William V. Judson's Accounts from Petrograd, 1917-1918 Neil V. Salzman 1998 Kent State University Press 978-0873385978 Marples David R. David R. Marples Russia in the Twentieth Century: The Quest for Stability 2010 Routledge 9781408228227 Sakwa Richard Richard Sakwa The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union 1999 Routledge 978-0415122900 Ulam Adam Bruno Adam Ulam The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia: with a new preface. 1998 Harvard University Press 978-0674078307 Wade Rex A. Rex A. Wade Revolutionary Russia: New Approaches to the Russian Revolution of 1917 https://books.google.com/books?id=kGVFFzmUtLcC 31 July 2004 Routledge 978-1-134-39764-8 Further reading Badcock Sarah 'We're for the Muzhiks' Party!' Peasant Support for the Socialist Revolutionary Party During 1917. Europe-Asia Studies 53 1 2001 133–149 10.1080/09668130124440 153536229 Rabinovitch Simon Russian Jewry goes to the polls: an analysis of Jewish voting in the All-Russian Constituent Assembly Elections of 1917. East European Jewish Affairs 39 2 2009 205–225 10.1080/13501670903016316 162657744 Radkey Oliver Henry Russia goes to the polls: the election to the all-Russian Constituent Assembly, 1917 Cornell University Press 1989 Smith Scott Baldwin Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 University of Pittsburgh Press 2011 Von Hagen Mark Soldiers in the proletarian dictatorship: the Red Army and the Soviet socialist state, 1917-1930 Cornell University Press 1990 Russia Russia Constituent Assembly election Category:Election and referendum articles with incomplete results 1917 Category:November 1917 in Russia Election Category:Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Category:Constituent assembly elections in Europe Category:Constituent assembly elections in Asia Category:Russian Republic